Liberals suck at holding grudges against Republicans. To hear far too many on the left now, you would think that Ronald Reagan and both Bushes, along with John McCain and Mitt Romney, were just swell fellows with the best of intentions. All of these men, and the entire apparatus of the party since the 1964 elevation of Goldwater, have been devoted to an utterly stupid and devastating brand of politics that has quantifiably hurt America.
Trump isn’t an outlier, he’s just the latest outcome.
Despite all the anger and animosity directed at Trump right now, I fully expect it to dissipate with time. While it may seem impossible, I would be shocked if when the next would-be dictator emerges from the GOP ranks, liberals aren’t at the head of the line talking about the good old days of Trump.
If you think that’s impossible, think about how liberals talk to this century’s first Trump, George W. Bush. Bush’s policies and lies directly led to thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis losing their lives in the middle of the desert. But I have often seen liberals falsely praise the patriotism and common sense of Bush. The deception and corruption are washed away, because liberals only seem to be able to focus on one threat at a time.
We should never have allowed that kind of nonsense talk to take hold, and we shouldn’t let it happen again.
Conservatives to this day still speak with bitterness and bile about Jimmy Carter’s presidency, which ended 39 years ago. They regularly invoke President Barack Obama’s statement that he has a “pen and a phone,” invoked to defend his executive orders in 2014.
There’s no reason liberals should continue to give Republicans a pass for far worse presidencies. “Trump” should be constantly invoked as a moniker for national disaster, corruption and incompetence. The entire Republican Party has stood behind him even as mountains of evidence showed how stupid and profane everything was.
The press is not going to do the reminding — he was their golden goose for ratings and pageviews — so liberals should do it. If we don’t, we deserve the fallout to come.
One of the first political bloggers in the world, Oliver Willis has operated OliverWillis.com since 2000. Contributor at Media Matters for America and The American Independent. Follow on Twitter at @owillis. Full bio.